Hard disk access during gaming

[jdkick]

I've noticed that after a few rounds of BF2 there is a noticeable increase in disk activity between maps and during game play. Obviously, it's irritating. I've already tweaked Vista a bit by disabling SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, Indexing and enabled DisablePagingExecutive. This eliminated most of the disk activity I was seeing at the desktop but made no change during game play. As for background process, I don't allow much to run, but AntiVir and Windows Defender have real-time scanning enabled... auto-scan is disabled tho. I don't believe it's a memory issue any a quick alt-tab out of the BF2 shows only ~1.2GB in use (~800MB for BF2).

Thoughts?

 

[Piuc2020]

Wow you really fouled your Vista performance by disabling all those features, Vista is not your problem so I suggest you turn them back on.

Anyways, disk access is pretty normal during map loading and in some cases during gameplay, maybe you can describe your problem in further detail?

 

[PingSpike]

Are you getting poor performance in game that coincides with the disk thrashing? At first glance it seems like its a case of not enough memory, but you seem to have enough.

 

[legoman666]

get a 2nd hard drive and use it for gaming. They're so cheap now there is no reason not to do so.

 

[SexyK]

Yikes, as Piuc2020 made clear, you've probably cost yourself a bundle of performance already with your Vista "tweaks" - why bother with Vista if you're going to turn off all the new functionality? Vista works best out of the box and doesn't require the tweaking of older MS OSes. Anyway, even though you said you don't have much else running in the background, my bet is on another process doing some housekeeping during gaming.

 

[Xavier434]

How much of a performance decrease during game play (after the map has fully loaded) are we really talking about here? Give some detailed examples.


Also, did you make all those tweaks before or after you noticed this issue? My advise is that you begin by turning all of those features back on, play BF2 for a couple weeks, then report back with your performance observations at the end of those two weeks. Give Vista a chance to "learn" what BF2 files you are accessing a lot so it can pre-cache them for you.

No matter what you do, you will not be able to completely eliminate disk activity to the point where you see zero performance decreases while it is happening so do not hope for that. You could also try disabling your anti-virus during game play.

 

[WavingBlue75]

Vista is designed to suck up all the memory it can, the exact opposite of previous Microsoft OS's, by that "tweaking" you have fubarred the OS. Who ever sold you on that "tweaking" needs to have a clue x 4 firmly implanted in their head.

 

[jdkick]

The hard disk activity during game-play does coincide with reduced performance. I observe longer load times between maps and game play becomes less smooth. As noted, this only happens after a few rounds of BF2. I haven't been logging my FPS so I don't have any numbers. Just a noticeable increase in load times and reduced in-game performance.

This behaviour was observed both before/after applying the tweaks. I've been running Vista since mid-January and reinstalled in late February. So, an "out of the box" installation with all of the "new functionality" enabled couldn't seem to sort out and pre-cache my BF2 needs in over a month of usage. Since applying the tweaks I have not observed any reduction in performance. What I have noticed is a fairly dramatic reduction in hard disk activity.

As noted, Anti-Virus and Windows Defender are still active with real-time scanning enabled (auto-scanning disabled). I plan to take a stab at disabling the real-time scanning of these components the next time I fire up BF2 and will note any improvements.

 

[Xavier434]

In general, Vista has been known to exhibit odd behavior after disabling its features. I believe it was emphasized in an article written by one of the members here that we should not disable much of anything. I see you experienced these issues before tweaking Vista, but I would advise turning them back on anyways.

One thing that comes to mind since you are saying that you only experience this reduction in performance after a few rounds of BF2 is the possibility of memory leaks. Another thing to consider/test is whether or not these same symptoms occur in other games. Try playing another FPS of the same caliber as BF2 or something even more resource intensive. Let us know if you experience the same issues. It could be that the problem is isolated to BF2.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: jdkick
The hard disk activity during game-play does coincide with reduced performance. I observe longer load times between maps and game play becomes less smooth. As noted, this only happens after a few rounds of BF2. I haven't been logging my FPS so I don't have any numbers. Just a noticeable increase in load times and reduced in-game performance.

This behaviour was observed both before/after applying the tweaks. I've been running Vista since mid-January and reinstalled in late February. So, an "out of the box" installation with all of the "new functionality" enabled couldn't seem to sort out and pre-cache my BF2 needs in over a month of usage. Since applying the tweaks I have not observed any reduction in performance. What I have noticed is a fairly dramatic reduction in hard disk activity.

As noted, Anti-Virus and Windows Defender are still active with real-time scanning enabled (auto-scanning disabled). I plan to take a stab at disabling the real-time scanning of these components the next time I fire up BF2 and will note any improvements.

As others mentioned, you really shouldn't disable some of those features in Vista as they're some of the biggest benefits of the OS over XP. What you should check for problems is scheduled maintenances, like Disk Defrag and Windows Update. Make sure those are scheduled for times you're not using your PC as I believe they default to daily maintenance and can be lengthy and noisy, especially Defrag. Next time you observe your HDD making a fuss open up Resource Monitor and highlight disk activity. Sort by I/Os to see what process/app is causing all the ruckus and go from there.

As for your problem, you've fully updated Vista and applied all hot fixes, particularly the virtual memory fix? With Vista 64 your best bet for improved performance and reduced HDD activity is to upgrade to 4GB+. BF games are notorious for being memory hogs with their massive maps and they should absolutely benefit from more addressable memory for both the client and SuperFetch. More RAM is increasingly beneficial the longer you play as more will be pre-cached with SuperFetch and the client to the point loads never access the HDD. The other option would be to invest in quieter drives and let them spin away, although that won't do anything for your performance issues.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: chizow

As for your problem, you've fully updated Vista and applied all hot fixes, particularly the virtual memory fix? With Vista 64 your best bet for improved performance and reduced HDD activity is to upgrade to 4GB+. BF games are notorious for being memory hogs with their massive maps and they should absolutely benefit from more addressable memory for both the client and SuperFetch. More RAM is increasingly beneficial the longer you play as more will be pre-cached with SuperFetch and the client to the point loads never access the HDD. The other option would be to invest in quieter drives and let them spin away, although that won't do anything for your performance issues.

They also got some nice 8gb USB keys that are designed to work well with Readyboost. I got one from SanDisk and it works like a champ. Well worth the money and they are getting very cheap too.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: chizow

As for your problem, you've fully updated Vista and applied all hot fixes, particularly the virtual memory fix? With Vista 64 your best bet for improved performance and reduced HDD activity is to upgrade to 4GB+. BF games are notorious for being memory hogs with their massive maps and they should absolutely benefit from more addressable memory for both the client and SuperFetch. More RAM is increasingly beneficial the longer you play as more will be pre-cached with SuperFetch and the client to the point loads never access the HDD. The other option would be to invest in quieter drives and let them spin away, although that won't do anything for your performance issues.

They also got some nice 8gb USB keys that are designed to work well with Readyboost. I got one from SanDisk and it works like a champ. Well worth the money and they are getting very cheap too.

I've never looked at ReadyBoost as a viable option over more RAM, especially now that RAM prices are so low. Problem with USB keys are that their read/write speeds and STR are so poor compared to even traditional HDDs, typically 25-30MB/s for write/read for the fastest drives. They have excellent access times, but similar to HDDs with fast seek times that's only really good for multiple I/O of small files (server-type) rather than normal usage with a large buffer where you're enabling caching of larger files by design. But in the end, more RAM will make ReadyBoost obsolete to the point Vista will never touch the USB key always opting to use the RAM instead.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: chizow

As for your problem, you've fully updated Vista and applied all hot fixes, particularly the virtual memory fix? With Vista 64 your best bet for improved performance and reduced HDD activity is to upgrade to 4GB+. BF games are notorious for being memory hogs with their massive maps and they should absolutely benefit from more addressable memory for both the client and SuperFetch. More RAM is increasingly beneficial the longer you play as more will be pre-cached with SuperFetch and the client to the point loads never access the HDD. The other option would be to invest in quieter drives and let them spin away, although that won't do anything for your performance issues.

They also got some nice 8gb USB keys that are designed to work well with Readyboost. I got one from SanDisk and it works like a champ. Well worth the money and they are getting very cheap too.

I've never looked at ReadyBoost as a viable option over more RAM, especially now that RAM prices are so low. Problem with USB keys are that their read/write speeds and STR are so poor compared to even traditional HDDs, typically 25-30MB/s for write/read for the fastest drives. They have excellent access times, but similar to HDDs with fast seek times that's only really good for multiple I/O of small files (server-type) rather than normal usage with a large buffer where you're enabling caching of larger files by design. But in the end, more RAM will make ReadyBoost obsolete to the point Vista will never touch the USB key always opting to use the RAM instead.

Oh I wouldn't use it as an option over RAM. Instead, use it in addition to the RAM. The idea is that SuperFetch and Readyboost are meant to work together as a team to max the performance. I noticed a difference when I started using ReadyBoost. Especially during more intensive Multitasking and resource usage. It wasn't a gigantic difference, but it was still there and the price was right.

 

[Glavinsolo]

Readyboost works but I only use a 2gb drive don't think I would ever do 8gb

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Glavinsolo
Readyboost works but I only use a 2gb drive don't think I would ever do 8gb

I remember reading that 4GB is the max for ReadyBoost anyway. I assume that hasn't changed with SP1, but don't know for sure.

I personally run 2GB RAM + a fast 2GB flash drive for RB. Sure it would be ideal to have more RAM, but DDR1 prices are ridiculously expensive (compared to some of the DDR2 deals I've seen) and not really worth it to upgrade at this point...